8.  The applicant was born in 1960. He entered Sweden on 18 April 2009 and requested asylum on 24 April 2009. Before the Migration Board (Migrationsverket) he submitted that he had been born in Mogadishu and had lived there all his life, with the exception of a few years when, as a child, he had lived in the village of Baydhabo, 250 km northwest of Mogadishu. He belonged to the Sheikal clan and had been trained as a teacher. Between 1992 and 2005 he had worked as an administrator for the American Friends Service Community, an organisation providing humanitarian service, which had closed in 2005 because of the security situation. In the period from 2005 until 2009 he had worked as a teacher in his home. In 2007 he had received threatening telephone calls from people claiming to represent the Islamic courts, telling him to stop spreading Christianity. The applicant had told them that he had stopped working for the American Friends Service Community and that he was a Muslim but that had made no difference. When the conflicts between the Islamist courts and the Ethiopian troops had escalated, the telephone calls had stopped for a while. At the beginning of 2009 the applicant had received more threatening telephone calls, but this time from al-Shabaab, with a similar message as before. On 2 March 2009 members of al-Shabaab had gone to the applicant’s home and asked for him. He had not been at home at the time but had immediately decided to leave the country when he heard that they had been looking for him. His wife and children had still been in Mogadishu when he left the country but had later also left the city. The applicant claimed that, upon return, he would risk serious assault by al-Shabaab and that he would not be able to obtain any protection from his clan.
9.  In an interview held by the Migration Board on 5 May 2009, the applicant stated that five children from his first marriage had been living in Hargeysa, in Somaliland, the last time he had heard from them. In a submission to the Board of 22 May 2009 he stated that one daughter from his second marriage had been threatened and had consequently travelled north to be with relatives. In an interview held by the Board on 2 June 2009 he submitted that his daughter from his second marriage had fled to Hargeysa but he denied having said that his children from his first marriage were living there.
10.  In its decision of 18 September 2009 the Migration Board noted that the applicant had given a detailed and coherent story about his clan affiliation and thus had made his identity credible. Furthermore, it could be assumed that he originated from Somalia, which was supported by the language analysis undertaken. Therefore, the Board held that the applicant’s asylum claims were to be examined on the basis of a return to Somalia. It found that the possibility for a clan to give protection to its members had deteriorated due to the political development in Somalia where Islamist groups had come to play a more important role. It also pointed out that al-Shabaab was the most influential group and had developed in a fundamentalist direction. The Board noted that al-Shabaab had destroyed the traditional protection which clans could usually provide to their members. It further noted that clan protection in general was not reliable in Mogadishu.
11.  The Board found that it could not rely on the documents submitted by the applicant, namely a certificate of employment and an identity card which was no longer valid, in assessing his asylum needs. It therefore had to assess the credibility of his oral submissions. The Board found that the applicant’s submissions about his Mogadishu origins were credible. However, he had not made it credible that he had resided in Mogadishu in the years prior to his arrival in Sweden. The Board noted that the submissions about his place of residence did not correspond to the information given by his brother to the Migration Board on 16 September 2002 (who had stated that of his four brothers, one was living in Great Britain, one in the Netherlands, one in Afgoye and one as a nomad in Somalia, but none in Mogadishu). Moreover, when the applicant’s nephew’s wife had applied for a residence permit in Sweden on 25 June 2008 she had submitted that she and the applicant had been neighbours in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Furthermore, the Board found the applicant’s submissions regarding the alleged threats from the Islamic courts and al-Shabaab to be vague and lacking in detail. In the light of that, and the fact that he was supposed to have received the alleged threats in a period during which he had not substantiated that he had been residing in Mogadishu, the Board concluded that he had failed to substantiate a well-founded fear of persecution. Consequently, the Board rejected his application for asylum.
12.  During the proceedings before the Migration Court (Migrationsdomstolen) the applicant further submitted that he believed that his family was still in Mogadishu. He stated that his daughter did not live in Somaliland any more. She had fled because she had felt threatened by civilians living there. The Board, in reply, held that the applicant’s story was not credible. It further submitted that it was possible for him to relocate to Hargeysa where his first wife and their children were living.
13.  On 25 February 2010 the Migration Court, after having held an oral hearing in the case, upheld the Board’s decision. The court found that the applicant had not proved his identity but that it was clear that he had a background in southern or central Somalia. The court stated that there was no reason to question that he had been living in Mogadishu for periods of his life. He had submitted a certificate of employment from the American Friends Service Community to substantiate that he had worked in Mogadishu from 1992 until 2005. However, the court found that since he had failed to substantiate his identity this document had very little evidential value. It further stated that he had not submitted any documents or particulars to substantiate that he had been living in Mogadishu between 2006 and 2009.
14.  Moreover, the court found that the applicant had not given an adequate explanation of why his relatives’ submissions about his habitual residence did not correspond to his own submissions. In its view, the information given by the applicant about his trips to Ethiopia, where he allegedly had travelled for his nephew’s wedding and for business, lacked credibility. It concluded that the applicant had not made it credible that he had been living in Mogadishu during the years prior to his travel to Sweden and that it was unclear where in Somalia he had been living. In the light of that, and since his case had not been considered on the basis of a return to Ethiopia, the court held that the application for asylum should be examined on the basis of a return to Somalia as a whole.
15.  The court further found that the applicant’s submissions regarding his work for the American Friends Service Community had been very vague and lacking in detail. He had not been able to submit information about the exact nature of his work for the organisation or other specific details of the work. Moreover, it was not clear how representatives of the Islamist courts and later al-Shabaab had become aware of his work for the organisation and why they had started to threaten him such a long time after he had stopped working there. The court thus found that the applicant had failed to substantiate being at a real and personal risk upon return to Somalia and rejected the appeal.
16.  Before the Migration Court of Appeal (Migrationsöverdomstolen), the applicant submitted a driving licence, a certificate to prove that he owned land and receipts of paid telephone bills in order to substantiate that he had been living in Mogadishu before he had left for Sweden. He also submitted receipts showing that he had sent money to his wife in Mogadishu and a DHL bag to show that his wife had sent the documents to him from Mogadishu and, therefore, that she lived there.
17.  On 7 July 2010 the Migration Court of Appeal refused leave to appeal.
18.  The applicant subsequently claimed that there were impediments to his deportation and requested that his application for a residence permit be examined anew. His request was refused by the Migration Board on 25 August 2010 and on 14 September 2010 the Migration Court rejected his appeal. The applicant again submitted such a claim which was rejected by the Migration Board and the Migration Court on 23 May 2011 and 11 July 2011, respectively. Copies of these decisions have not been submitted to the Court.